After my comments on the matter a few days ago, it was suggested that I put together a list of Teen Titans-related deaths that have taken place in the last few years, what weight they carried and all that. One thing that’s kind of ironic is that in looking at these stories, I realized there haven’t been quite as many Titans deaths as I had previously suspected! While I’m sure I missed a few (maybe even some really obvious ones, and I’m sure you’ll all tell me), the list I’ve got going on here is fairly exhaustive.

In the Infinite Crisis crossover event, we lost Baby Wildebeest, Bushido, Pantha and Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El, who came back in this month’s Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #4 by Geoff Johns, the same guy who killed him off) to Superboy-Prime’s out-of-control tantrums. For a long while, we were without Tempest (also now returned). Does he count? He’s done time in various iterations of the team, but (like Roy Harper for a very long time) had never really gotten out of the “sidekick” shadow.

Worth noting: Mas y Menos appeared in the “Director’s Cut” of Final Crisis #1 to have survived; Empress has been back in Supergirl and Sparx was listed (as of Teen Titans #66) as a potential member, so it appears that they all survived their aborted attempt to launch the League of Titans or whatever it was in Final Crisis #1 after having their asses handed to them by Dr. Light and Mirror Master. So whereas Infinite Crisis was a Titans death bonanza, it appears as though Final Crisis didn’t kill any Titans, instead the larger storyline of Final Crisis served as a vehicle to bring back Kid Flash and Superboy.

52 featured the deaths of Terra and Young Frankenstein (who recovered) at the hands of Black Adam during his tear across Eastern Europe and Asia; and the murder of Osiris (hey, a Titan for ten minutes is still a Titan) by Sobek. Shortly after the end of 52, there was a spate of Titans and Titans allies who bit the dust, including Bart Allen/Kid Flash in Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13. Bart, of course, came back recently in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3. Judd Winick’s Titans East #1, a lead-up special for the Titans monthly, featured the death of Power Boy and saw Anima, Son of Vulcan, Lagoon Boy, Little Barda, 

Hawk and Dove all appear to die, only to be revealed at the start of Titans #1 as in various stages of recovery. Given that Little Barda, like Power Boy, was a New God and they’re all dead now, I do wonder how her apparent survival plays into the grander tapestry of DC’s continuity…but sometimes you just learn not to ask these questions. As far as I know, nobody has picked up and run with any of these characters since their slaughter, so they’re functionally dead (most of them were anyway, let’s face it) even if they aren’t being treated as physically deceased. I guess the only real difference is that if there was a statue someplace, people would remember them (think of Tomorrow Woman, who had like two appearances and is still more recognizable than poor Anima, whose title ran for more than a year). Around that same time we saw the incapacitation of Connor Hawke in Green Arrow/Black Canary, who was never a Titan that I can recall but certainly could have been; he’s part of the right generation of heroes. He was one of the many DC characters to get the “random lightning bolt from the sky” treatment during that period of time, although we later found out that he was just in a coma…and I think he’s even come out of that lately. I don’t know.

While all that was happening around it, DC’s “spine,” Countdown/Countdown to Final Crisis, featured the death of Duela Dent/Joker’s Daughter within four or five seconds of the story starting and was…er, I guess, the reason for the story in the first place. I’m going to blame that one on showrunner Paul Dini, although let’s face it—there were about 200 people involved with the creation of Countdown, so it could have been anybody’s idea.

Most recently, Sean McKeever’s Terror Titans story featured the deaths of TNTeena and Disruptor, who weren’t actually Titans (do Terror Titans count?), but are worth mentioning just the same. In the first issue of their mini, the new Persuader killed Molecule, who had been a Teen Titan during 52.

The real irony, of course, is that it’s the Teen Titans’ monthly book that seems to have far less death than I expected (although the needless violence ratio has definitely gone up since Infinite Crisis).

Bombshell, one of the “Titans East,” was murdered by Batgirl during an interrogation in that story by Geoff Johns. She got better. It was a long time before another Teen Titan actually died in the pages of this title, and then it was “caretakers” Marvin and Wendy (yes, modeled after the ones from the Super Friends cartoon) who bit the dust after being mauled by the Wonderdog (you can’t make this stuff up) in #62. It later appeared without much explanation that Wendy had actually escaped.

Let’s not forget, though, that Teen Titans #33, the issue that preceded the end of Infinite Crisis and served as a sendoff for Superboy Conner Kent, was supposed to be the last great Nightwing story as well. Of course, Nightwing never died and is now Batman, and Conner got better.

I’m not entirely sure, relative to the rest of this timeline, where the Ed Brubaker/Bill Willingham Batman story “War Games” falls, but since Stephanie Brown’s Robin was a Teen Titan for about 6 pages, I suppose she’s worth mentioning, even if the death has now been retconned.

After their conflict with the Justice League in the early days of the title (back when both the Titans and the JLA were made up of big-name, major-player characters as opposed to the fourth-stringers who currently pack their respective rosters), it was decided that the team would be subject to oversight if kids started dropping like flies…and so one does have to wonder (even if the problem isn’t quite as bad as I had previously thought) how it is that nobody’s lowered the hammer on them in the last few years? Maybe it’s that the JLA members previously worried about the safety of these children are instead preoccupied on New Krypton, in prehistoric caves or seeing their jobs outsourced to newer, male versions. But there’s always been time for a memorial service, and to commission a statue. How come none of that downtime was spent discussing whether having a team that seems like little more than a children’s death club operating was a good idea?

  It’s the lesson that the Trinity took to heart at the start of Infinite Crisis: “When we’re not around or not getting along, bad things happen.” DC has since showed us this a couple of more times since (52, the current instability in the DCU given Superman’s absence, a new Batman and Wonder Woman’s problems – and all of them stepping down from the JLA). But just somewhere, sometime, since it was part of the original agreement of the Titans, it would be nice if the Trinity acted like heroes and checked in with a team that has clearly gone off the rails.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 pm and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.